This is my 4th campaign for Simaaya. Nice to have a client that trusts you so much and over a period of 3years (almost since the beginning of my photography career). Apart from the comfortable working relationship and deep understanding of the brand such a relationship brings, it also helps one experience a growth curve and plan for the future. Client-photographer relationships are like marriage, you need to keep on seeking new and improved ways to keep it exciting!
The challenge is to provide that extra bit that can take e brand forward and not cocoon itself in e comfort zone of complacency.
The brief was to promote the traditional sarees to the atypically conservative (mostly Bengali) clientele. The big idea was to put a twist to the theme of vintage or traditional. Initially we googled and sought to purchase some century old pictures of brides or maharanis, mainly because of the time constraint. However locating the copyright holder and asking permission to commercially use the pictures turned out to be an impossible task. Plus where is the creative challenge for a photographer in using stock pictures?
The beauty of having your wife as stylist and close friends as models is that shoots can be planned and executed blazingly fast! I have always wanted to shoot anannya who herself is a brilliant photographer, and this was the perfect opportunity. She is extremely pretty, but at the same time she had this very vulnerable child-woman look about her. And the best part is she is absolutely raw and has none of the hardened posing that years of professional modeling brings.
So armed with a 24/2.8 and my trusted D700 we landed up at the clients premises early on the first Sunday of the year. The makeup was to be bridal and ruchita had carried her newly aquired set of styling jewelry she had bought from Jaipur.
We quickly assembled a makeshift backdrop in the showroom with available furniture and whatever fabrics and cushions we could lay our hands on. We did about 3 looks in total. Anannya was very paitient throughout sat absolutely still considering my long exposures due to low light conditions. I was shooting raw at max iso and aperture wide apart, since I knew I was going to pp the images to a film grain look.
The pp was simple, convert to bw add a bit of grain, add a tinge of sepia. I also added two layers of stock for that old torn out edges.
Pro tip 1. Always be ready and never put the camera down. Te shot that the client loved the most was a fluke shot between takes. The and that you see is actually the makeup artist adjusting her hair!
Pro tip 2. Know your final picture. Here I knew the exactly what I wanted, so I could shoot at such grainy pictures which no AD would have ever accepted for publication. These 12 mp raws made it to 5 ft x4 ft instore posters and 40 ft x 20 ft billboards! Take that Hassy!
Pro tip 3. Details details details
